The Social Capitalizers

Greater Gotham

March 15, 2006

New York State Senator and dynamic, progressive leader Eric Schneiderman is speaking right now at The Tank in Lower Manhattan.

The room is full; the crowd is quiet -- listening, engaged.

He's talking about progressive movement building, and imagining the pyramid that needs to be established for our side.

But here's what's truly unique: he spent very little time talking about Republicans. Very little time talking about how destructive conservative policies are.

He's talking about what Democrats stand for -- that we're better in union with each other, that we can tackle poverty, that everyone deserves a fair shot...and it's making me realize how few of my leaders speak in such simple terms of who we are.

March 10, 2006

Laughing Liberally is no small thing. Its packed night at Town Hall is leading to encore events and a national tour from this spring through the midterms and beyond. Comics are delighted by the chance to perform political material often unwelcome at comedy clubs and audiences are excited by shows that elevate while they entertain.

But it started as a small thing. When The Tank found itself with an empty Friday the night before the 2020 Democrats brought the Principles Project conference to town, we hit upon a simple idea: if liberals liked gathering in social settings like bars, as Drinking Liberally demonstrated, maybe they would like meeting in a comedy venue as well.

And they did. People who had lurked on the Drinking Liberally list, but didn't like the crowded bar environment, turned up for the first Laughing Liberally.

That was 52 weeks ago tonight.

Come celebrate the Laughing Liberally Anniversary, with performances by established and emerging comics, at the venue where the project began: The Tank -- at its new location -- 279 Church St. The show is at 8pm. And it's timeless.

March 09, 2006

I love The Twilight Zone. Beautifully-constructed, twenty-three minute morality tales -- challenging us to study the world around us, ask ourselves what we value, fear atomic annihilation and never judge too quickly.

He refers to a country of gay rights, immigration and free speech as "The Twilight Zone," scaring viewers with extreme and distorted versions of each.

Of course, in the real Twilight Zone shows, Rod Serling argued for tolerance, diversity and patience. And when a quiet suburban block turns murderous for fear of "invasion," the message is that paranoia is the real enemy.

The Twilight Zone was creative, unflinching, serious in the issues it addressed, playful in execution, unafraid of moral assertions that praised compassion, inclusion and humility, and a frequent dance partner with the foggy gray areas of a complicated world.

In other words, Twilight Zone was a liberal show. Don't worry, Rod Serling, we know where you stand.

March 06, 2006

Blue-Red, Northeast-South, Secular-Fundamentalist...the political divisions, when laid out on a color-coded map of America, tell a very clear story: Urban vs. Other. Cities are Democratic strong-holds; the blue oases against the red desolation that covers so much of the electoral landscape.

And yet, the debates in 2004, 2002 and 2000 were not city issues vs. rural issues. In fact, city issues -- urban poverty, overcrowded schools, environmental racism -- just don't get talked about much. Ever since Clinton put more police officers on the streets, urban issues have been off the table.

The Drum Major Institute is promoting Thursday's event with Buffalo's new Mayor Byron Brown and New York's Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott by broaching that question. "When is the last time you heard a presidential candidate talk about cities?" it's flier teases. "Exactly."

But setting aside who urban issues divide, for a moment, look at who they are uniting: the Democratic Mayor of Buffalo, and the Deputy Mayor of New York's Republican leader. The bi-partisanship isn't even whispered in the invitation, but we know it's there.

Walcott's appearance is an extentenion of Mayor Mike duking it out with DC by going after guns and angering Albany by supporting schools. It seems like in their second term, the Mayor's team is choosing times and places where city comes before party.

In many cities, the Town Hall event featuring Congessman John Conyers would be front-and-center on the minds of local liberals. Here in New York it just becomes one of the menu of offerings. There has been a dry spell...lulls in the number of panels and performances...but that's changing.

Nights like this -- when liberals have to choose between exciting events -- are coming back. It's reminiscent of the summer of '04. Only this time, even without the Presidential election, it's starting sooner.

It's a sign of the energy to come.
Don't let the sleet scare you away.

February 27, 2006

George Pataki went into the hospital for an appendectomy ten days ago. His spokespeople practically rushed out of the hospital room to brief the press in the middle of the night, a forthcoming show that seemed aimed at distancing them from the secrecy that shrouded the Vice President's own hospital visit (granted, Cheney was on the other side of the hospital bed).

When NY1 took a poll asking whether the Governor should take a few days to recover, I found myself agreeing with the majority: our man in Albany should take a few days out of Albany. It's surgery...take the weekend to recover.

That was 10 days ago.

New hospitals, additional surgery, and Pataki is still in a bathrobe. His handlers' directness faded first behind the insistence that the "complications" were "routine," and their endless declarations that "the Governor is resting comfortably" have become a little shrill.

NY1 has daily shown a clip of Pataki working from his bedside. The same clip...again and again. The sort of clip a Soviet leader would have used to prove a Minister hadn't fallen out of favor. Or that some goofballs would use to prove their Weekend at Bernie's was going just fine.

I hope Pataki is resting comfortably and on his way out of recovery soon. While we may not gain full disclosure of the medical complications, we did make another discovery this week: New York may not need a Governor after all.

Ten days with our state executive, and nothing has come up that's demanded his attention. Bloomberg has been tackling state education funding on his own. Our Senators took lead on the ports. Nobody seemed bothered that the lame duck Governor was, well, lame.

Maybe New York doesn't require a Governor...or, more likely, it just proves what we've been saying for awhile: New York just doesn't need George Pataki.

February 02, 2006

Bush is great at taking on problems that don't exist. Enriched uranium...the crisis in Social Security...his State of the Union Addresses are expert escapades in made-believe. So this year's declaration of war against human-animal hybrid cloning was just one more in that tradition.

Is he truly paranoid about such "manimals"? Or has he gone off the deep-end?

Or...is it just another code sent to the religious ultra-right?

When Santorum speaks out against gay lifestyles he talks of beastiality. When Cornyn vilified homosexuality, he compared it to having sex with a box turtle.

...and now, Bush speaks about the unnaturalness of merging human and animal.

Maybe I'm the paranoid one now...but I also thought W. was just off-message when he talked about the Dred Scott decision in the '04 debates. Turns out he was telling the religious right that he was anti-choice.

They speak a code that I don't understand. Is Bush gay-bashing in a way that sounds like science fiction?

January 31, 2006

Why do we organize parties as Drinking Liberally chatpers around the country are doing, and as we will host tonight at San Marcos (St. Mark's btw 2nd & 3rd)?

We certainly don't believe it's an honest address, rigorously fact-checked and determined to present the American public with truth. Those 16 words about uranium handled that myth.

We don't believe that it even represents an agenda for the next year. Remember when W. spent a speech discussing hydrogen-fueled cars and defeating AIDS.

If anything, the State of the Union Address is a weird sibling to the Alito hearings: nothing of substance will be said, tough questions will be avoided, the concerns Americans have going in will be given no audience, and the public will just be numbed by platitudes and pleasantries.

In Santa Barbara, at their Drinking Liberally, a member argued that Dems should have announced a filibuster before the Alito hearings began. I laughed -- won't that paint us as obstructionists? His response: the hearings won't illuminate any of our deep concerns, and will only present a palatable dish of Alito to a less engaged, broader public.

And he was right.

So is the answer that we shouldn't watch the State of the Union? That we should have a prebuttal (which I believe Dems are doing)?

Or just do what we're doing...treat it as grusome entertainment and watch it with friends and family with drinks (and drinking game) in hand.

January 27, 2006

Tom Suozzi, the Nassau County Executive who plans on mounting a primary run against Eliot Spitzer, surprised the crowded dive bar Rudy's last night with a visit to Drinking Liberally.

Seemingly out of place in his suit and flanked by his staff, he quickly showed himself to be quite at home in the dark, loud bar -- greeting Liberal Drinkers and others, exchanging jokes and just making the assemblage of Hell's Kitchen locals and pint-pouring politicos feel...well...important.

Every hand he shook was one more person who went from "Who's Tom Suozzi" to "Seems OK...I'd consider him."

And this shold be a Spitzer crowd. These are progressives who admire the AG's proactive assaults on big corporate greed on corruption. These are people who know Spitzer's resume and hunger to win back Albany.

Yet these people were impressed: this Suozzi guy showed up.

There is a gnawing perception that Eliot Spitzer is running a "rose garden" strategy -- pretend you've already won. Look how it helped Kerry and Ferrer in their primaries -- they sailed through...completely ill-prepared for the general.